International Club of Myrtle Beach

The course

The golf at International Club of Myrtle Beach

The International Club of Myrtle Beach opened in 2000 to a Willard Byrd design in traditional style, located on International Club Boulevard in Murrells Inlet on the South Strand. It plays to par 72 with a maximum of 6,857 yards and a slope of 131, and carries an easy difficulty rating. Greens are Bermuda, and practice space runs to a driving range and putting green. Bill Haas holds the course record at 62.

The layout is approachable and the routing draws steady mention in reviews. Reviewers place it a little above the area's gentler layouts for difficulty, which is a fair marker for the level of test on offer. Carts come in for genuine praise, described by one reviewer as the nicest they had used, and the cart paths run close enough to the fairways that a cart path only day does not turn into a long walk. Staff draw warm comment from several reviewers who felt made welcome.

The review split is the weakest of the courses with a full breakdown here, and it deserves a straight reading. Across 265 reviews the average is 3.6, with 67 five star and 87 four star ratings, then 65 threes, 29 twos and 17 ones. That means well over half of all reviewers stopped short of top marks. Two problems account for most of it. Drainage is the first: rain comes up repeatedly, with reviewers describing the course as super wet, on cart path only restriction, and still soft three days after rain. Several were unhappy they had not been warned about conditions before arriving. The second is green consistency, mentioned by name in both praise and complaint, with one reviewer noting the greens simply were not the best. Tee boxes and bunkers also drew criticism, with one reviewer describing tee boxes as hard as concrete and the sand traps as mud, along with a long wait to start behind three groups. Set against that, reviewers who caught the course dry reported it in good condition and enjoyed the round, and a group of twelve came away happy with both the golf and the tee time they were given. The gap between the good days and the bad ones here is wider than at most courses in the area, and weather is the main variable.